How could the Tarrasque still possibly be alive?

[Mercurius]

A thought came to me that I didn't want to insert into the Tarrasque or Legendary monsters threads so as not to thread-jack, but has been irking me since seeing the Tarrasque preview. Let me explain it thusly: Imagine the tarrasque rampaging through the country side, killing everything in sight. Let's say the tarrasque enters an established nation like, I don't know, Cormyr and continues doing what it does best.

Then King Azoun X is alerted and says, "OK, not good." He then contacts the nations most powerful mages and assembles an army and goes out and...well, kills the damn thing. Done, over, kaput.

I mean I get how a dragon in the far northern mountains isn't just instantly killed. Or I get how you could have a nation of bad guys, or countless tribes of orcs, or whatever various monsters in this or that region or territory, even in the middle of an otherwise civilized realm. But a massive rampaging monster?! It is one thing for King Azoun to tolerate the Broken Fang orc tribe or random ogres in the hills. It is quite another to just let a massive rampaging kaiju just pass through the country, obliterating everything in its past. More to the point, any reasonably sized country in a fantasy world has the means to quickly dispatch of such a creature.

So what say you? How would you rationalize the existence of such a creature? Would you keep it in some far off wilderness region? Or perhaps contained in some mountain valley? Or do you just hand wave logic and let the thing rampage through Cormyr?

 

[doctorhook]

A thought came to me that I didn't want to insert into the Tarrasque or Legendary monsters threads so as not to thread-jack, but has been irking me since seeing the Tarrasque preview. Let me explain it thusly: Imagine the tarrasque rampaging through the country side, killing everything in sight. Let's say the tarrasque enters an established nation like, I don't know, Cormyr and continues doing what it does best.

Then King Azoun X is alerted and says, "OK, not good." He then contacts the nations most powerful mages and assembles an army and goes out and...well, kills the damn thing. Done, over, kaput.

I mean I get how a dragon in the far northern mountains isn't just instantly killed. Or I get how you could have a nation of bad guys, or countless tribes of orcs, or whatever various monsters in this or that region or territory, even in the middle of an otherwise civilized realm. But a massive rampaging monster?! It is one thing for King Azoun to tolerate the Broken Fang orc tribe or random ogres in the hills. It is quite another to just let a massive rampaging kaiju just pass through the country, obliterating everything in its past. More to the point, any reasonably sized country in a fantasy world has the means to quickly dispatch of such a creature. So what say you? How would you rationalize the existence of such a creature? Would you keep it in some far off wilderness region? Or perhaps contained in some mountain valley? Or do you just hand wave logic and let the thing rampage through Cormyr?

• Supreme regeneration powers.
• It disappears as mysteriously as it appeared, before an effective counter-force can be assembled.
• It's a divine/legendary entity that cannot be permanently killed because magic/fate/universe.
• Any or all of the above.

Not being a Realmslore expert, does FR have a history of encounters with the Tarrasque?

 

[Crothian]

Not being a Realmslore expert, does FR have a history of encounters with the Tarrasque?

How the Mighty Are Fallen is a FR adventure that does have the creature in it.

 

[wedgeski]

The obnoxious answer is: because, game. A monster as truly legendary and undefeatable as the Tarrasque would be the stuff of Legends and Lore, not the Monster Manual. Otherwise, [MENTION=58401]doctorhook[/MENTION] has the goods.

 

[the Jester]

First, this isn't a problem if there is a clutch of tarrasque eggs that hatch one at a time over the course of eons.

Second, moving an army of mages and whatnot to find it, catch it and kill it is probably harder than it sounds. And at best, that army is going to suffer some pretty harsh losses when they make their attack. Can Azoun (or whomever) afford for his kingdom to lose half its high-level dudes when he has enemies everywhere? Especially if all his high-level dudes are running agents performing missions. Imagine a group of 4th level pcs perform a vital mission to retrieve a doodad for Archmage X and return to give it to X, but he's been slain fighting the tarrasque!! Is allowing the tarrasque to destroy a city and a few towns a regretfully better course for Azoun and his people in the long run?

Not to mention, how do you persuade an army of high-level characters to fight the tarrasque for you? We all know that high level characters do what they want most of the time, are notoriously hard to control and have lots of stuff of their own going on.

I don't find it problematic at all.

 

[delericho]

Three possible explanations:

- The Tarrasque can't actually be killed. Even if you 'kill' it, all that does it force into dormancy for 1,000 years (or whatever).
- Who says it's actually the same Tarrasque each time? Maybe it's like the Slayer - into each generation a chosen one is born.
- IIRC, one of the justifications for needing the PCs with all the uber-NPCs in the Realms is that they're in a kind of MAD-based stalemate with their villainous counterparts. So when Azoun sends the call out for his superfriends to assemble they all have to decline, because otherwise the Zhents/Red Wizards/whoever will take advantage of their absence. And which a Tarrasque rampage is bad, it's actually less bad than what might be unleashed.

Besides, isn't the Tarrasque supposed to be D&D's equivalent of Godzilla? And doesn't he always come back for the sequels?

 

[TwoSix]

1) Because campaign worlds exists to be places where things will happen, not places where things have already happened and been cleaned up.

2) The tarrasque wakes but rarely, and when he has, it's never been in a place where the resources existed to truly challenge his might.

3) He has been defeated and killed before. The sages struggle to find answers how he has risen anew.

4) He has been defeated, and is currently chained up in a city where the economy centers on the harvesting of the flesh and hide of the tarrasque.

 

[Umbran]

• 
  
  It disappears as mysteriously as it appeared, before an effective counter-force can be assembled.

• 
  
  In 5e, this is a major effective answer. It is out in the middle of nowhere. It can move *fast*, when it wants, generating an effective move of 140. Meanwhile, teleportation to arbitrary locations is very risky. By the time you get a report, assemble a suitable/sizable force, and get it to where it was reported, the thing has galloped off a long way.
  
  Sure, you can track it, but he darned thing is going to get to some untrackable location before you, and then... poof!

 

[Jester David]

In previous editions (2e at least, possibly 1e and 3e) the tarrasque could only be killed if you cast wish multiple times on its corpse.
So the answer is, it was killed and the triumphant heroes disposed of the body. But failed to cast wish as they lacked the Monster Manual to know that was a requirement. So it slowly regenerated, went into hibernation, and then came out a few decades later.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The obvious answer is that nothing can hurt it. Entire armies are helpless, as it is immune to every attack. Spellcasters are rare, and mathematically incapable of inflicting 600+ points of damage to it before it takes a long rest and heals back to full.